Dumbledore's Last Moments
by Payprklip
Summary: One shot. This takes place *that night* on the Astronomy Tower and records the last few seconds of Dumbledore's life from his POV. "Through the hole in the tower floor he saw Harry's green eyes, wide with concern. Those eyes, so like his mother's, framed by round glasses and the pale moonlight that streamed through the gathering storm clouds..."


**Author's Note: This is my first Harry Potter fic! This scene is based on the film version (as much as there was wrong with it) because it wouldn't have made sense if it were the book version. You'll see what I mean if you are an avid Harry Potter fan. Please read and review - it would mean so much! **

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He looked down. Through the hole in the tower floor he saw Harry's green eyes, wide with concern. Those eyes, so like his mother's, framed by round glasses and the pale moonlight that streamed through the gathering storm clouds, turning the already pale skin sickly white. _Deathly_. Those eyes, that always held so much trust when they gazed at him, so much…admiration. _If only you knew, Harry._ Those eyes, that always made him feel so incredibly guilty. Oh, how many times had he gazed back into those green orbs and regretted all that he had done to the boy? That young man, who was so full of love that it hurt to know what had to happen to him if Tom were to be destroyed. That young man, who was so full of pain – most of which, _he_ had been the cause of. He had never meant to – everything he'd done had been in order to protect the boy with the green eyes. Lily's boy.

Only a strip could be seen of the Harry's face, just enough that he could see concern boiling over into panic as the seconds stretched on. The green eyes shifted, suddenly a piercing blue. The same blue that matched his own. Ariadne's blue. Had Harry known, back there in the cave, what he was seeing? That the potion had made him relive his worst memory? Of course not. Harry didn't even know that he had had a family. There was so much that Harry didn't know about him, and now never would. As quickly as the change had come about, they morphed back, leaving him reeling and thinking as though he had imagined it. _Well, they do say that as one is about to die, one's life flashes before their eyes…_

The greatest wizard of all time, they called him. No one great would ever hurt the ones they love. And he had. He had killed Ariadne, shunned Aberforth, neglected his siblings when they needed him most and focused on that thrice-blasted quest. And now he was about to hurt Harry for what seemed like the hundredth time. Everyone said that Tom was evil. But Tom had never hurt those that he loved. _He never had any to hurt_, a little voice in the back of his mind mumbled, _Better to have loved and lost…_

_In his mind's eye, he was sitting in his familiar chair, surrounded by the many paintings of headmasters from ages past and resting his chin on his folded hands as he surveyed Harry through his half-moon spectacles. Harry's eyes were spilling with the tears that were washing the cuts on his cheeks, mourning the death of the godfather that he barely knew…that he inadvertently led into danger._

_"I know how you feel, Harry."_

_"No you don't."_

Oh, if only you knew.

_The paintings began to blur and meld onto one, colours mixing and blending. Paintings that he would soon be joining. He wondered if it would be peaceful to be a painting, only having to hang on the wall and watch the world turn further towards destruction - a destruction that he had tried to prevent, but destruction none the less._

He blinked, managing to raise his eyes – that had never dimmed, despite his extraordinary long life – from those orbs of green, filled with so trust and love and pain, to the orbs of black, filled with so much trust and love and pain. Severus too, knew what it was like to had loved and lost. Perhaps that was what connected them all. Not the loving, that had been in done different ways and felt in diverse pangs, but the losing, which had had but one effect. Devastation.

"Severus." He spoke the name. The name of the man that had risked so much for him. For his love. For Harry. "Please."

There was a heartbeat. It lasted for millennia but was filled with only one, silent question: _Do you remember what I asked you to do?_

In that heartbeat, he was able to glance down one last time and gaze at the green eyes of the boy that all of this had been for. He remembered the last words that he had spoken to his protégée, the one that meant so much to him that it made his old heart ache: _Do as I say, Harry. __**Trust me.**_

He glanced back up and the question was answered: _I do._

"Avada Kedavra."

Green light.

No more.


End file.
